Recipes for “The Cheese Trap” by Dr. Barnard

News: The Cheese Trap!

Some of you may recall my talk of “a big project” (aka The Cheese Trap) this past year. Since September, I have been developing recipes and putting those recipes through rounds of testing.

Pause: I cannot continue to talk about this project without expressing appreciation for my testing group. I couldn’t have pulled this off so quickly without your help – thank you! Back to my story…

From the start of my vegan journey, during recipe writing and blogging, I followed PCRM and Dr. Neal Barnard. In those early days, especially as a pregnant woman and mother, the credible nutritional information on PCRM was invaluable.

Dr. Barnard has long been one of my plant-based heroes. In 2012, I finally met the good doctor when he was speaking in Vancouver (rather, he had little choice but to meet me.) 😉

Dr. Barnard graciously wrote two forewords for my books – one for eat, drink & be vegan and another for Plant-Powered Families. His body of work is remarkable, delivering talks, writing articles, and publishing books all promoting the many benefits of eating a plant-based diet.

During my own years of writing books, I had this inner desire to partner with a group like PCRM, or even better, the good doctor himself. My wish came true last fall when Dr. Barnard contacted me.

Author of many well-loved plant-based books, Dr. Barnard releases his 18th title, The Cheese Trap, this February. I have contributed all the recipes for The Cheese Trap, and that truly is an honour and career highlight for me.

As many of us eating a plant-based diet know, cheese is most often the “final frontier” for people making the transition to plant foods. Other dairy products can be difficult to eliminate, but cheese is especially difficult for people. In this book, Dr. Barnard explains why, and offers a comprehensive program to help us break free from cheese addiction to gain energy, lose weight, and improve our health. Recipes cover all meals, with a focus on cheese replacements to satisfy cravings such as pizza, lasagna, ice cream and cheesecake.

You can preorder The Cheese Trap now: amazon.com and amazon.ca, and I will be sharing a couple of recipes from the book this fall. Here are some of my favorite recipes:

The 30 pounds of cheese that the average American has added to his or her annual diet hold 55,000 calories. You could drink a can of Coke every day and not get to 55,000 calories.

Cheese has plenty of fat, as you know only too well, and people who eat cheese and other fatty foods are at much higher risk of developing diabetes, compared with people who avoid them.

To point out the obvious, most cows do not produce milk, any more than most women do. They only make milk if they have been pregnant. So farmers impregnate their cows every year. Surprising as it sounds, much of the milk that goes into the dairy products you buy—perhaps most of it—comes from pregnant cows. So when you drink a glass of milk, have a bowl of ice cream, or chew a bit of cheese, you’re getting traces of hormones that surge during pregnancy.

The milk drinkers had more acne, and how much of a problem it was depended on the fat content. Those who drank the most whole milk were about 12 percent more likely to have had severe acne. But those who drank the most skim milk were 44 percent more likely to have had severe acne. In other words, fatty milk was a problem, but low-fat milk seemed to be a much worse problem.

Could a cheese sandwich make your joints hurt? Arthritis is something we attribute to older age or maybe to genetic traits passed along from our parents. But rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory condition—your joints do not just ache; they are also swollen and tender, and that means that something is triggering the attack.

If you have rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, or any kind of inflammatory condition, run—don’t walk—to a dairy-free, plant-based diet.

A great many people have turned away from meat-eating because of the grotesque cruelty involved. But dairying can claim no ethical advantage. The industry relies on impregnating animals, separating them from their infants, pushing them to produce as much milk as drugs and biology can manage, and killing them as soon as it no longer pays to keep them alive.

A cup of milk contains about 7.7 grams of protein, 80 percent of which is casein, more or less. Turning it into Cheddar cheese multiplies the protein content seven-fold, to 56 grams. It is the most concentrated form of casein in any food in the grocery store.

All of which makes an important point: cheese is a heavily processed food. If you look askance at spaghetti or bread because they are processed—that is, they are made from grains that are—gasp—ground up, think for a minute about cheese. Cheese is the ultimate processed glop.

Filled with fat, crammed with cholesterol, and steeped in sodium, cheese is a seriously unhealthy product. Its addictive properties keep you hooked, even while it works its mischief on your waistline and damages your health.

We’ve all heard it from others… “but I could never give up cheese!” And those of us that have given up cheese now know that life is much better without it. So, if you are one of those people finding yourself in the cheese trap, this book is for you.

Wow, I’m so bummed I didn’t get to test for you for this book! I LOVE you AND Dr. Barnard (one of his was I think my 2nd ever vegan book way back in 1998). I’m thrilled you 2 teamed up on such an important topic. Can’t wait to get a copy!

What a great team, two of my favs for sure. This info is much needed. I love the way he communicates and with your fantastic recipes, you will both hit it out of the park for sure! Can’t wait to read it!

Pre ordering it now! I admit I still get sucked into the cheese trap even after 10 years on a plant based diet. But it never tastes as good as I remember. 🙁 I love so many of your plant based recipes. Vegveeta has to be my favorite!!

Just yesterday I was attending a big family dinner and my nephew in his early 20’s was complaining of stomach pain after eating and other general complaints of feeling poorly. I suggested he try to go dairy-free for 30 days to just see how he feels. He said he doesn’t drink “much milk anymore but eats TONS of cheese and could NEVER give it up”. No amount of my gentle persuasion could convince him to even try! So frustrating! I came to a WFPB diet/lifestyle because of people like Dr. Barnard and YOU!! Congratulations, Dreena, and thank you for ALL you do to bless so many people and animals!! xo

Sounds like a great book! Looking forward to reading it! I feel so much better giving up cheese. It was hard and at times I still miss it every now and then, but there are so many great non dairy vegan options out there now.

In 2010 I was treated with an alternative form of chemo, using low doses and many other kinds of healthy healing treatments, for an aggressive stage 3 breast cancer. An important part of the treatment was a raw vegan diet. On returning home, within a few weeks I added cheese back to my diet. It was what I thought of as “good cheese”, imported and without the usual bovine growth hormones and antibiotics used in the US, but it was still cheese. All was going well before the cheese, but the tumor began growing rapidly again after starting eating cheese. Eventually I had to have chemo again followed by a mastectomy. I’ve often wondered if I would have needed further treatment had I not returned to eating cheese.

Only later did I learn of Jane Plant’s work in Great Britain, healing cancer by removing dairy products from the diet. I also learned later of Dr T Colin Campbell’s work, where he found he could consistently turn cancer growth on in rats by feeding them casein and off by withholding the animal protein.

For more confirmation on your belated discovery do check out http://www.NutritionFacts.org . Dr. M Gregor’s ‘history’ begins w’his G’mother being told by Doc’s to ‘go home and get your life in order’ in her early 60s, shortly thereafter she hears of Dr. Pritkins work out West and in a w’chair gets herself to his clinic. 31 years later she get to see her G’son graduate Med. Schoo. The rest is how his wonderful website and book have lead so many to the truth…….no I am NOT affiliated in any way, just want to shout his name for the benefit of others!

This is a great achievement; congratulations! Two thoughts came to mind as I was reading the email–T. Colin Campbell’s book, “The China Study”. His experiments at Cornell on mice and rats (he was replicating a study done in India) showed that cancer could be promoted by the amount of animal protein used (casein) and not by the amount of the carcinogen (aflatoxin). The line was 10%. I had no idea that cheese has that much casein in it. Also, my go-to doctor, Joel Fuhrman, MD, said at a health getaway that if he had to choose one worst food it would be cheese. Thank you!

I heard Neal on Rich Roll’s podcast talk about the book and he mentioned you. Very cool indeed. I heart Dr. Neal.
Pre ordered and pre ordered one as a gift as I just had a family member ask “convince to give up cheese!” So thanks!

Wow! Such amazing news!!! I too followed PCRM early in my adventure to going vegan and I remember seeing your blog post after meeting Dr. Bernard! This project is so exciting got you personally and professionally. I’m excited to read the book!!

I’m so excited by this news! I LOVE your recipes and I equally love Dr. Barnard’s books. This will be a wonderful addition to my cook book shelf. I also assume that it will be smudged and dog-eared as soon as I start cooking from it. Thank you for all your hard work.

I’m so happy for you, Dreena! You’re recipes are amazing. I’m getting excited about making your festive chickpea tart for Thanksgiving next month. I can’t wait to see what new jems you’ve come up with!